Witnesses in Bednarz triple murder trial describe animosity between son and his mother

HARTFORD — A parade of witnesses on Tuesday described the animosity between Brett Bednarz and his mother, Beverly Therrien, whom he is accused of bludgeoning to death in November 2010.

The witnesses said Bednarz regularly used crude and derogatory terms to describe his mother.

In one example, Bednarz's profane outburst at a Manchester bank on Sept. 16, 2010, the day after his 92-year-old father died, caused a bank employee to inadvertently blurt out information he was not supposed to divulge, the employee testified in Superior Court Tuesday.

Alan Skinner told the jury that Bednarz and his sister, Candace Bednarz, visited his branch to find out who the beneficiaries were on their father Andrew Bednarz's bank accounts. Brent Bednarz was the beneficiary on two accounts, but not the third. Skinner said he told Bednarz he could not tell him who the beneficiary was.

"He pounded his hand on my desk [and] wanted to know if it was 'that bitch, his mother Beverly,'" Skinner testified. Skinner said Bednarz was extremely angry and continued to use crude words to describe his mother.

"He basically hated her guts and wished she would die," Skinner told the jury. "It went on a couple minutes."

Skinner testified that after he learned about Beverly Therrien's murder, he contacted East Hartford police.

Bednarz is charged with three counts of murder, home invasion and violation of a protective order, and is accused of killing Therrien, 74, and two people staying at Therrien's East Hartford home, Michael Ramsey, 53, and Pamela Johns, 60. All three were found dead about 7:30 a.m. on Thanksgiving Day after East Hartford police went to 154 Naomi Drive to check on Therrien's well-being at the request of a friend.

"We were talking about mom taking pictures down and Brett was upset," she responded.

Elizabeth Repass, a neighbor on Naomi Drive, described a conversation with Brett Bednarz and his sister shortly after Andrew Bednarz's death.

"He said, 'The bitch killed my father,'" Repass said. Bednarz then described life in his mother's house, she said. "It didn't sound like it was a nice place to be," Repass said.

Candace Bednarz's daughter, Tiffany Ortiz, testified Tuesday that Therrien was abusive and that there was tension between Therrien and the rest of the family.

Therrien left nasty phone messages at Candace Bednarz's Manchester home, so Ortiz said she blocked her grandmother's phone number.

"Some [messages] were fairly vulgar in nature?" Garcia asked.

"Yes," Ortiz responded.

A neighbor on Naomi Drive, Reed Berube, said that on the day of the killings a friend told him Candace Bednarz was vomiting in the front yard of 154 Naomi Drive. He said he called Brett Bednarz and told him to come check on his sister.

Therrien's nephew, Gary Howe of Manchester, N.H., testified that he attended a court hearing during the fall of 2010 during which Brett Bednarz was found guilty of a misdemeanor after assaulting his mother. Garcia asked Howe if he heard Brett Bednarz say anything after the hearing.

"She needed to be dead," Howe said Brett Bednarz told him. "Candace was there and gave him a slap on the wrist and told him to be quiet."

Howe said Brett Bednarz talked to him about asking Therrien to have Ramsey and Johns move out of 154 Naomi Drive.

"He didn't like the fact they were living in his dad's room and wanted them to get out immediately," Howe said.

Howe also said that Therrien had told him she feared her son.

Paul Lavoie of Coventry, a longtime friend of Brett Bednarz and his mother, testified that during 2009 and 2010 he saw Bednarz being abusive toward Therrien. "He would be yelling at her and going towards her," Lavoie said.

Garcia asked Lavoie if Therrien told him she was afraid of her son.

"Yes," Lavoie replied.

Lavoie said he last spoke to Therrien the Monday before Thanksgiving 2010, and that she was supposed to call him back on Tuesday. He said she never called. He said he got a letter from her after her death, and the letter prompted him to go to East Hartford police. The contents of the letter were not revealed.

Although the bodies were discovered Thanksgiving morning, the exact time of death remains unknown.

Associate Medical Examiner Frank Evangelista testified that only on TV are medical examiners able to say when someone died. In actual practice, there are too many variables.

He described performing autopsies on Therrien and Ramsey as photographs of their battered heads were shown to the jury. Both died of blunt head trauma, he said. Another medical examiner performed the autopsy on Johns and is expected to testify Tuesday.